Weekly Wrap Up

This week we began reading some myths and legends. The students really seem to be enjoying these stories that have been passed down for generations and generations and explain how different cultures believe that certain things in nature came to be. For example, ask your child how panda bears came to be...that was a favorite legend! As we read each story, we are working on skills such as summarizing, inferencing, identifying cause and effect and recognizing sensory language.

We have also begun a new writing project based on David Shannon's book Duck On a Bike. Students have each chosen an animal, a setting, and a unique mode of transportation and will create a fun fictional story about the adventures that animal has on their ride.

In math, we are continuing our unit on measurement. We began the week with the Measurement Olympics which was a lot of fun and gave them a lot of practice in estimating lengths, as well as measuring lengths. Now we are learning about perimeter and area. We just touched on area on Friday, so there will be more of that next week!

Andres completing the long jump!

Ester doing the one foot hop

Justin about to compete in the high jump

Sofia and Olivia at the backward step station

Caroline and Aishwarya beginning to measure the distance of their discus throw.

Beginning to explore area...

Using centimeter cubes to find area

Another way to use the cubes...

Exploring perimeter and area

We have transitioned from science to social studies to study economics as we begin to prepare for our Economics Fair in March. Third graders are learning about our country's free enterprise system, concepts of supply and demand, and the interdependence between producers and consumers.

If you ask the kids, I am sure they will say Wednesday was the best day of the week, with our field trip to the LCRA Redbud Center. Students rotated among four stations: water cycle, watershed, Colorado River, and water conservation. It was great reinforcement to all of their research for their Water Warriors project, and the volunteers at the Redbud Center were impressed with their knowledge.

Only two more weeks until spring break! During this time we will study further in social studies, culminating in our Economics Fair. We will wrap up measurement and move into graphs in math. And in language arts, we will work on our summarizing and inferencing skills with lots of engaging children's literature, and finish writing our crazy animal stories! I am sure the next two weeks will just fly by like the rest of this year has!